Liverpool Museums Blog » maritime archives and libraryhttp://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
Behind the scenes blog covering National Museums Liverpool’s galleries and museums in Liverpool and Wirral.Tue, 03 Mar 2015 16:53:24 +0000en-UShourly1Lusitania: Queen of the Seas!http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/2015/02/lusitania-queen-of-the-seas/
http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/2015/02/lusitania-queen-of-the-seas/#commentsMon, 16 Feb 2015 09:48:42 +0000http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/?p=7378Lusitania: life, loss, legacy opens at the Merseyside Maritime Museum on 27 March. This new exhibition will tell the story of the Liverpool passenger liner RMS Lusitania and her tragic sinking during the First World War.

The sheet music for a piano waltz titled ‘Lusitania: Queens of the Seas’ is in the Museum’s archive collection. The front cover of the sheet music is signed and dated by the composer George Manners Herd on 1 January 1908, just four months after the passenger liner’s maiden voyage.

Ian Buckle performing the piano waltz

Last week we brought the music to life. The piece was performed by pianist Ian Buckle, who plays with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and it was recorded at Whitewood Studios. We had not been able to find an existing recording of the piece, so it felt particularly special to hear it being played for the first time.

The recording will feature in the first section of the exhibition, which explores the ship’s early years and her dominance of travel across the Atlantic. There was a great feeling of pride and affection for the ship in Liverpool as so many of the crew were from the city. The music helps to capture how the Lusitania was a symbol of success and optimism during this period.

150 years ago on 19 September 1864 John Clint, a Liverpool seaman and ship-owner, and Mayor Charles Mozley called a public meeting at Liverpool Town Hall, ‘for the establishment in the River Mersey of a training ship for the children and orphans of seafaring persons and other poor and destitute boys’. By mid November the Admiralty had agreed to their request to provide a suitable ship. They granted the loan of the 50 gun frigate ‘Indefatigable’. On 9 February 1864 the ship left Plymouth for the Mersey to be fitted out at Coburg dock.

The Maritime Archives and Library hold many of the archives of the training ship Indefatigable including minute books, cadet register books, visitor report books and photographs, which give insights into the lives of the cadets there.

Watercolour of Indefatigable cadets at Deganwy Summer Camp on the North Wales coast, 1891. Maritime Archives and Library reference DX/2363

For example, Thomas Niblett was admitted as a cadet on 3 May 1897. He had spent his early years in the Boys Refuge, Manchester an institution set up by Leonard K Shaw. Records show that in his final year on Indefatigable Niblett saved the life of a fellow cadet who had fallen over board. He was awarded the silver medal of the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society, a vote of thanks and five shillings. The local newspaper called it “a very plucky rescue”.

Thomas Niblett left the ship in May 1899, sailing on the Pacific Steam Navigation Company vessel Oravia as a deck boy. His cadet record lists his character on leaving as very good. Records at the United States National Archives show that Thomas Niblett eventually became a US citizen, married and moved to Baltimore, a city not dissimilar to Liverpool, working on the docks.

By 1912 Indefatigable was becoming unseaworthy and on 5 January 1914 was towed to Birkenhead Docks close to the replacement cruiser Phaeton.

The last voyage of HMS Indefatigable. Maritime Archives and Library reference D/IND/4/24

The 4,300 ton cruiser Phaeton was purchased from the Admiralty by the Bibby family, fitted out at their expense by H and C Grayson and renamed Indefatigable. The ship remained moored in the Mersey off Rock Ferry until 1941. Enemy action then caused the school to become land based, first in temporary accommodation in North Wales and then at Llanfairpwll, Anglesey.

The school finally closed on 3 July 1995. It was purchased by the Ministry of Defence a year later and renamed The Joint Service Mountain Training Centre (JSMTC) Indefatigable.

Further details about can be found in our training ships information sheet and a comprehensive catalogue of the collection can be found on the National Register of Archives.

Queensway Mersey Tunnel entrance hung with ceremonial curtains prior to the official opening, with the royal stand in the foreground. Archive reference number 11256-8

The Queensway Mersey Tunnel, connecting Liverpool with Birkenhead beneath the River Mersey, was officially opened 80 years ago, on 18 July 1934 by King George V, accompanied by Queen Mary. The distinguished company of Stewart Bale Ltd, a Liverpool based firm of commercial and industrial photographers, was selected as the photographers to officially capture this prestigious event.

The tunnel was an outstanding and unprecedented engineering achievement of its time and was then the longest sub-aqueous tunnel in the world. Stewart Bale had also been awarded the significant contract to cover the progress of the Queensway’s construction, resulting in the taking of almost 1,000 glass negatives.

The album contains 23 images; the first 17 (pages 2 to 18) feature the ceremony at the Liverpool Old Haymarket tunnel entrance, with the remaining 6 views (pages 19 to 24) covering the ceremony at King’s Square, Birkenhead, following the tunnel drive-through by the royal party. There is also a title page listing the members of the Mersey Tunnel Joint Committee; the statutory authority for the management of the tunnel construction.

Photograph taken during the aftermath of the sinking of Nova Scotia, Mozambique Channel, 28 Nov 1942 (Maritime Archives reference DX/2592).

This photograph doesn’t look like much, just a grey sea and sky, but if you look closely there is a speck in the middle of the image. This is a photograph of the aftermath of the wreck of the Liverpool registered Furness Withy ship Nova Scotia which was torpedoed on 28th November 1942 off the coast of Mozambique. The speck is a man floating on an upturned table in shark infested waters. He was rescued, one of only 194 survivors of a compliment of 1052. The photograph is contained within a fascinating diary donated to the Maritime Archives & Library by a couple who used to live in Mozambique. It was kept by a British businessman, Charles Francis Spence, who was in neutral Mozambique with his family during the Second World War. The family did their best to assist any merchant navy seafarer or other Allied personnel who came ashore after being sunk in the Mozambique Channel and recorded their photographs and stories in this diary. It contains some amazing tales of survival against the odds and is a great read. The diary, and its transcript, is available to view at the Maritime Archives & Library.

I’m sure there are plenty of pancake batter recipes available on the internet, but there’s always room for one more.

This is from a 1911 edition of ‘Sea Cookery’ by Richard Bond, which the author describes as ‘a cookery book which will on sensible and plain lines give a number of recipes of value both on sea and shore’. It does seem to do just that, giving recipes for all kind of useful dishes, including how to make yeast (vital for fresh bread) and how to boil a sheep’s head.

The quality and quantity of food on board a vessel had a big impact on crew and passenger morale and behaviour. A combination of poor ingredients and equipment, parsimonious shipowners, and lack of training made food at sea notoriously bad. ‘Son of a sea-cook’ was a common term of abuse. Recognition of these problems led to a clause in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1906 requiring a vessel of 1000 tons and above to employ a trained cook.

This Valentine Day linked item is a menu from the White Star Line vessel Baltic for 14th February 1913, when the ship was approaching New York on a voyage from Liverpool. It’s an impressive array of food, so is probably a first class menu.

The Maritime Archives and Library holds a lot of ship menus and I find them fascinating. In this case I wonder why celery deserves a special mention. The Green Turtle will be turtle soup, which I’ve seen quite often on our menus. Should you wish to recreate this meal for a romantic night on Friday, according to the internet (so I’m not guaranteeing veracity), Casserole of Chicken a la Madrid is a spicy, tomato and pepper based dish, which sounds quite nice. Salade Mercedes contains chicory, egg, beetroot and orange, which sounds horrible. I’d give that a miss and move straight onto Pudding a l’Ambassadeur which is a kirsch and chocolate cake.

Photograph of wounded disembarking from a hospital ship during the First World War (Maritime Archives reference D/APB)

Here at the Maritime Archives & Library, I am in the process of preparing our annual return for the NRA, which in the world of UK Archives stands for National Register of Archives. Every year The National Archives asks archive repositories of all sizes and types across the country to send them a list of the collections they have accepted in the last year. Significant acquisitions are then added to the NRA which can be searched through its website here. It’s a really useful tool for researchers to find out who’s got what. It’s also useful for us, as it protects us from making the archival faux pas of accepting records when another repository already has a collection that they should be added to.

The return is quite easy to complete (I’m an archivist, of course I keep good records) and I enjoy being reminded of the interesting documents that people have been kind enough to donate to us, and by extension, to the whole country.

The image in this post is a photograph from the collection of Albert Percy Bishop (D/APB), a ship’s purser for Blue Funnel and Donaldson Line, who served on hospital ships during the First World War. A collection of his seafarer’s documents and photographs were donated to us in May 2013 and will be of great interest during the forthcoming commemorations of the First World War.

W Roberts, shipbroker, from the De Wolf photograph album (Maritime Archives reference DX/2243)

As the leaves fall from the trees and the nights draw in my thoughts turn not towards Christmas, but to moustaches. We have again updated our gallery of moustached maritime men in support of the Movember health campaign. All this year’s men come from the same book, a volume of photographs presented to John Star De Wolf, shipbroker, upon his retirement from business in 1915. Having an album full of photographs of men certainly made this year’s moustache hunt a lot easier for me. However, I can’t help wondering what Mr De Wolf made of his gift. I’m very fond of my colleagues, but should I ever leave my job, I’m telling them here and now, I do not want to be given photographs of them as a leaving present.

No this isn’t evidence of an early, unsubtle, attempt by the west to spy on the Russian government, although you never know. This is a photograph from our British Insulated Callendars Cables (BICC) archive and shows the then named British Insulated & Helsby Cables Company installing electricity cables in Moscow. We’re not sure if the cables were for lighting or trams, and we don’t know the exact date, although 1908 is written on the back of the photograph. However, it is an interesting photograph so that’s a good enough reason to put it on the blog. I especially like the look of the very tall man in the bottom left corner.

The large BICC archive contains a lot of photographs, including many street scenes of cable laying in various locations. The catalogue for the collection is available via the National Register of Archives (search for British Insulated Callendars Cables at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra) and to view the records contact the Maritime Archives & Library.

Merchant Navy Day is celebrated on 3rd September to commemorate the contribution the merchant navy has made, and continues to make, to Britain. This year the Maritime Archives & Library is holding a drop-in family history helpdesk in our Searchroom on the second floor of the Maritime Museum, 10.30am to 4.30pm. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of the records that people need, but we can advise on where to find them. We’ve also put together an online exhibition explaining the types of documents often found amongst seafarers’ papers. So, if you don’t know the difference between a mariner’s ticket and a master’s ticket have a look.